Look, I'm just going to rip off the bad news band-aid and tell you straight up that Halloween is canceled for the foreseeable future. I have stared and stared at the cover of this month's Martha Stewart Living, hoping to discover that this is in fact a Magic Eye version of Martha dressed as a pile of unadorned pumpkins--which would be weird but acceptably diabolical--but I am sorry to say that it is just a picture of unadorned pumpkins. Whither my deranged New England muse? My red-eyed sorceress? My moth-faced madwoman? My beloved disappointed pirate?
No Martha, no Halloween. Sorry everyone. This year we only get fall. Don't you dare decorate that stack of gourds. ARTFUL JUMBLES ONLY.
What's an appropriately boring fall activity, let's see...I guess we could pit vegetable tarts against each other? That's...seasonal and sad enough, I guess.
Rachael Ray: Cheesy Vegetable Tart. Kind of like a ratatouille pizza. Pros: easy to make, crust held up long enough to take it to book club, cheese blends in well enough that you can pretend it's healthy, recipe is linkable. Cons: had some leftover eggplant.
Martha, or whatever humorless, costumeless monster has taken control of her empire: Roasted Carrot and Beet Tart. Pros: looks rustic in a picture. Cons: too many sweet flavors together, crust is unpleasantly dry despite the painstaking olive-oil-painting of each layer, uses a food processor, hazelnuts are expensive, requires four different rounds of things in the oven, beets, everyone vocally disliked it, says "Active Time 40 minutes" but I assume that means "of cardio in order to amass the amount of endorphins required to stop being bitter about the two hours this actually takes to make," no obvious linkable recipe although that is probably neutral seeing as how I can't imagine anyone would want it.
Winner: Martha. Jkjkjkjkjkjkjk, the winner is none of us because Halloween is dead.
We did still decorate a little bit.
